There are a number of reasons why there can be debate about
which record should be considered to have been "Number One"
in a particular country on a certain date. These are discussed further down
this page. However there is clearly a sizable group that don't want
to know about these details and just want to know what record was top of the
charts on a given date (such as their birthday). This table shows which records
were number one for various countries over the month of October 1960.

As was mentioned above, there are all sorts of reasons why
the entries here rather over simplify the real situation. We have made a large
number of sweeping assumptions in order to present a simple picture to the vast
number of users that just want a song title. This means that there are a number
of entries in these tables that should be handled with caution. In addition where
these entries differ from the original sources (listed later) it should be assumed
that the sources are correct, where these entries conflict with the main data
assume that the other data is correct, if you find either of these cases please
tell us and we'll correct the data here.

If, like us, you are the type of person that wants to know if a song was top of the
Jukebox or Jockeys chart, or where a double-A side was released, or when chart
entries did not specify an artist, or when the charts switched from one magazine
to another we suggest that you have a look at the original sources:

Before the NME started publishing weekly song charts in late 1952 there were
listings of "sheet music" sales. This list of number one songs
originally didn't have a particular artist attached. The data at //www.britburn.co.uk/
has the complete sheetmusic charts starting in 1939.

The RPM magazine was the definitive national chart in Canada from the 1960s until
2000. Archives Canada have published a list of scanned images of the charts, but
no one has yet converted this into a usable form. This list of the number one records was
originally based on one from Wikipedia but has used the original source to fix the most obvious
issues.

After the RPM magazine finished publication there is some debate about which chart
should be considered definitive in Canada. This listing is based on the Billboard chart
as described in the Wikipedia pages.

This list claims to be mainly based on the RIANZ charts. For weeks where no chart
was produced it has been assumed that the previous week's number one record just
retained the top slot (and in most cases the same record was at number one the
following week, so that seems reasonable).